Rejoinder to "Perspectives on `harm' in personalized medicine -- an alternative perspective"

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sarvet, Aaron L., Stensrud, Mats J.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866916172003278848
author Sarvet, Aaron L.
Stensrud, Mats J.
author_facet Sarvet, Aaron L.
Stensrud, Mats J.
contents In our original article (Sarvet & Stensrud, 2024), we examine twin definitions of "harm" in personalized medicine: one based on predictions of individuals' unmeasurable response types (counterfactual harm), and another based solely on the observations of experiments (interventionist harm). In their commentary, Mueller & Pearl (2024) (MP) read our review as an argument that "counterfactual logic should [...] be purged from consideration of harm and benefit" and "strongly object [...] that a rational decision maker may well apply the interventional perspective to the exclusion of counterfactual considerations." Here we show that this objection is misguided. We analyze MP's examples and derive a general result, showing that determinations of harm through interventionist and counterfactual analyses will always concur. Therefore, individuals who embrace counterfactual formulations and those who object to their use will make equivalent decisions in uncontroversial settings.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_14869
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Rejoinder to "Perspectives on `harm' in personalized medicine -- an alternative perspective"
Sarvet, Aaron L.
Stensrud, Mats J.
Applications
In our original article (Sarvet & Stensrud, 2024), we examine twin definitions of "harm" in personalized medicine: one based on predictions of individuals' unmeasurable response types (counterfactual harm), and another based solely on the observations of experiments (interventionist harm). In their commentary, Mueller & Pearl (2024) (MP) read our review as an argument that "counterfactual logic should [...] be purged from consideration of harm and benefit" and "strongly object [...] that a rational decision maker may well apply the interventional perspective to the exclusion of counterfactual considerations." Here we show that this objection is misguided. We analyze MP's examples and derive a general result, showing that determinations of harm through interventionist and counterfactual analyses will always concur. Therefore, individuals who embrace counterfactual formulations and those who object to their use will make equivalent decisions in uncontroversial settings.
title Rejoinder to "Perspectives on `harm' in personalized medicine -- an alternative perspective"
topic Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.14869